


Did I Shatter You?

by likeromeoandjuliet



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Betty shows up, F/M, I wish this wasn’t happening so it is, One Year Later, Post-Break Up, and short, but very angsty, i don’t care, post 5x03, this is angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:02:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29198067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeromeoandjuliet/pseuds/likeromeoandjuliet
Summary: She debates going into the diner for about ten minutes before actually going in. She’s nervous, it’s been a year, a whole freaking year and she’s still as desperately heartbroken and in love with him as she was before. They’d texted here and there, mostly just small updates.The memories of their last few days in Riverdale make her heart ache worse than anything she’s ever felt. She’d been so stupid. Kissing Archie had been the biggest mistake of her life, it cost Jughead’s trust, her best friend’s trust. The safety net she had before was gone. All because she was too fucked up in her own head. The truth is she doesn’t know what she was thinking, for the life of her she can’t figure it out what made her throw away Jughead’s trust like that.OrPost- Break Up. Betty shows up a year later because I say so. Fuck you.
Relationships: Betty Cooper & Jughead Jones, Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 42
Kudos: 126





	Did I Shatter You?

She debates going into the diner for about ten minutes before actually going in. She’s nervous, it’s been a year, a whole freaking year and she’s still as desperately heartbroken and in love with him as she was before. They’d texted here and there, mostly just small updates. 

The memories of their last few days in Riverdale make her heart ache worse than anything she’s ever felt. She’d been so stupid. Kissing Archie had been the biggest mistake of her life, it cost Jughead’s trust, her best friend’s trust. The safety net she had before was gone. All because she was too fucked up in her own head. The truth is she doesn’t know what she was thinking, for the life of her she can’t figure it out what made her throw away Jughead’s trust like that. 

After he found out and they’d been in their not-quite-broken-up stage, it’d been an agonising, slow, painful death to her. It’d been suffocating to lie in bed, awake, crying herself to sleep, the actual physical distance between them making her feel cold, even in the summer. 

It’d been the coldest summer of her life. He was so distraught, so distant from her and she knew, deep in her heart, that there was nothing she could do, but let him go. He deserved as much, he didn’t have to feel obligated to stay with her for the summer. Not like this. Their love deserved better than that. So, when Alice, feeling every bit of the distance between them, she could tell, suggested that they went early, on a road trip before Yale, she’d said yes. 

Yale is fine. It’s challenging and maddening at times and she’s not entirely sure what she wants to do with her life beyond Yale but that’s okay. She’s not the only one. Apparently, every college student is just along for the ride, so she’s at least comforted. She can figure it out. She’s been thinking about this day, coming back to Riverdale a year later, for so long. Sometimes the little note on her calendar app mocks her desperation but she knows she needs this. Needs to see them. If they’d shown up. God, she hopes they do. 

But when she arrives, the first thing she sees, through the window, is Jughead. His hair is a bit shorter, he’s sipping his coffee, not really doing anything. A part of her wonders how long he’s been sitting there and there’s another part of her that wishes he wasn’t. There’s a part of her that’s so deeply afraid of what has changed between them, of what they’ve lost. Sometimes she wishes there was a way to keep those moments of the past frozen, unchanged, like she can forget what happened, what she did, her guilt. 

She’s missed him. Missed his sarcasm and the way he’d smile at her, the way he’d look at her like she was everything to him. She missed his touch, his silent presence, always lingering or rougher hands in the middle of the night. That night, when she’d told him about the kiss, they’d been desperate. She was holding onto him for dear life, as if she could fix everything with just her lips and her body. Sometimes she thinks, it’s so completely distant from what they used to be. They communicated, they fixed things but that night and every other night after that, they were just broken. By her hand. She’d never forgive herself. 

Betty knows she doesn’t deserve him. Even through it, he’d tried, he’d been so good to her, reaching for her hand to unclench it so she wouldn’t dig her nails into her palms, so she wouldn’t hurt herself even though she hurt him. He deserves someone who loves him better, someone who isn’t so fucked up in the head like her. Someone normal, someone who doesn’t scream in the middle of the night from terrible nightmares, someone who doesn’t have questionable coping mechanisms, someone not quite so impulsive, someone not..crazy. It’s time she comes to terms with it. 

Jughead wouldn’t say it. If they’d pulled through, he’d tell her she isn’t, that every situation is out of her control, that she’s better than that. He’d tell her she’s deserving of love even if she doesn’t believe him, that she doesn’t have to let guilt and fear and anger consume her so wholly. 

But that’s not them anymore. 

This is them. 

She walks into Pop’s, the bell rings out, he looks up, he looks surprised to see her and her heart is hammering in her chest. When she makes her towards their booth, there’s a soft smile on his lips. 

“You let your hair down.” Jughead tells her and the soft look on his face feels like relief to her. 

“And you cut yours.” She offers him a smile. 

“Sit.” He gestures in front of him and she sits. 

“Just me?” She questions softly. 

There’s an array of emotions that cross his face and she knows he’s disappointed no one else had shown up. It hurts that he’s disappointed it’s just her. But that’s selfish. And she’s already adding it to the list of selfish things she’s done. She wants to be better. 

“Just you and me.” He breathes out. “How’ve you been? We haven’t...talked.”

She shrugs. “I’ve been good. Yale is...Yale is great. It’s challenging. How’s Iowa?” 

“It’s nice to be around people with brains, although as pretentious as they can be.” 

“I’m sure you fit right in.” He smiles softly and she’s glad she can joke with him, at the very least. 

There’s a pause in the conversation and Jughead stares at her a little. It reminds her of before. When they were drifting away from each other when he’d been at Southside High and they’d met at Pop’s, both of them with things unsaid, aching to say them. 

“I wish things could’ve been different.” He tells her and she sucks in a breath, looking at her hands on the table. She fights the urge to curl her fingers. “I wish we had talked more.”

“Do you really?” She asks softly. 

He nods, letting out a small breath. “I think...I think maybe there were things I didn’t...want to know, wasn’t ready to talk about.” 

“Jug...” She can’t stop the tears that well up in her eyes, she can see how much it still pains him. 

“And I don’t think I’m ready yet.” He confesses and she understands. She doesn’t want to. She wants to reassure him that he’s still everything to her, that she still loves him just as much and there wasn’t a moment she stopped. They’d promised they’d always love each other, but Jughead has doubts. She knows him. It’s hard for him to trust and she’d broken that trust so suddenly. He doesn’t blame him for not trusting her. 

“Do you want me to go?” She questions. 

“No.” He answers immediately. “I don’t want to talk about us, yet. I’m not...ready. But maybe we can just...sit here and you can tell me about Yale and I can tell you about Iowa.” There’s tears in his eyes and her heart aches for him, it pains her so bad, so terribly agonising to be so distant from the love of her life. “We can just sit.” 

So, she nods, her heart keeps breaking but she nods her head. “Okay.” She says. “Okay, Jug.” 

They sit for hours. She tells him about her year, Alice’s quips and grievances. She tells him about Yale, all of her classes and how interesting they were and how much she’s learning, how she’s made a few friends that don’t really have murder at their back or serial killer fathers or murderous towns. In return, he tells her about Iowa. His teachers, his writing, what’s improved, how pretentious some of his classmates are, not in a Brett way, but more of tortured artist more like. She laughs at his stories and sometimes they can pretend everything else isn’t weighing them down. 

When they decide it’s time to go, she gives him a ride. He’s staying at the Four Seasons and she almost offers Polly’s room or the couch but she knows he wouldn’t want to. Knows it’s too painful for them. 

It’s silent when she stops the car in front of the hotel. They sit in silence for a while, the lump in her throat hasn’t disappeared and she fears it’ll always be like this, now. 

“I hate that this is us now.” He confesses and his tears prompt her own. She sniffles, he grabs her hand, interlocking their fingers. “We were good, Betty. We were good.” 

She tries to breathe in, but it’s so painful. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Jug.” 

“I know.” He nods. “I know you are.” He brings her hand to his lips and lets it linger for a moment. “But I need time.” He whispers. She wraps her arms around him, bringing him in for a hug at the awkward angle inside the car. They stay for a while, until he pulls away, gently. And then he caresses her cheek. “It’ll be okay.” He promises and she desperately wants to believe him. “I’ll see you around, yeah?” 

“Yeah.” She breathes out. 

He’s about to get out of the car when he turns back towards her. “I know I’ll regret this but do you want to come up?”

“I don’t think I should do that.” 

“I want you to. Just for tonight.” 

Betty will never deny him anything, so she doesn’t this time. She doesn’t deny him her lips or her body, she doesn’t deny him anything. Never. She’d light herself on fire if it meant keeping him warm. That’s what it feels like anyway. This won’t change anything. It’s just momentary relief for a situation they don’t know how to fix. 

But she allows herself to forget that as his lips trace her body and he looks at her in the same way he always does. A sight for sore eyes. Like she’s everything. 

It won’t change anything. 

But they can have tonight. 

**Author's Note:**

> We’re all broken, I know! Just want to break us a lil more, I’m sorry! Tell me what you think or just scream in the comments I don’t know ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
